So it took a bit longer than Thanksgiving weekend.

I haven’t been posting much because really, how many times can I post about scraping? But this is a celebratory post, because as of Saturday, December 12th, the scraping was done!

I have no idea what I was smoking when I thought that we would be finished scraping by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe I was in denial. Whatever it was, it was clear by the Friday after Thanksgiving that it wasn’t going to happen. Even if that Saturday hadn’t been a rain day, we still wouldn’t have finished. However, we did make some progress by the end of that weekend, and by the following Saturday we were VERY close to completion:

IMG_20151205_141309109_HDR (1) — **One side is completely finished!**

Honestly, we could have finished on Sunday the 6th, but I went on strike. I had blisters on my hands from the day before, and I decided that one weekend day off from physical labor was completely reasonable.

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Scrape, scrape, scrape…

Scrape, scrape, scrape…scrape your bo-at, scrape your bo-at. Yes, “Shake Your Booty” by KC & the Sunshine Band has been running through my brain when I think about this project. No need to thank me for the ear worm.

The last few weekends have seen slow progress on our latest project of scraping the bottom. It’s not that it has been particularly time-consuming. It’s just that intervening circumstances have dictated that we only put in a few hours each weekend.

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This is not going to be one of our favorite projects.

Saturday, October 31st found us at Shenny helping with the club’s fall clean-up. Our plan was to come back the next day to keep working on the boat. Unfortunately, I made the foolish mistake of thinking that I could hang with the guys and decided to help with dismantling “E” dock. After toting many carts filled with heavy copper wire and bending over countless times to drill out hundreds of screws, Sunday, November 1st found me laid up with a sore left hamstring. If I had been a horse, I would have been taken out and shot. Needless to say, we did not go down to the boat that day, but by Saturday, November 7th we were back and ready to get to work.

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Maybe I’ll join the circus in my next life.

Columbus Day weekend was a three-day weekend for us, so we hoped to finish rebedding the cleats and the pulpits by the end of Monday. Eventually we will be rebedding everything on the boat, but the rest will wait for another offseason.

We were treated to spectacular weather for all three days, and I’ll admit that on more than a few occasions we found ourselves gazing longingly out on Fishers Island Sound, watching the sailboats and wishing we were among them. Our friends Tom and Arlene had invited us for a ride on their motor boat a few weekends ago, and being on the water again really made us miss it. Oh well. We’ll have plenty of adventures next season. In the meantime, we needed to focus.

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Three more stanchion bases complete.

The weekend of September 26th found us back at the boat for more rebedding. I had hoped that by the end of Sunday we would be finished with everything but the stern pulpit and cleats, but alas, it was not to be.

Everything we’ve read said to use duct tape on the underside of the holes that are being repotted with epoxy. The duct tape is supposed to keep the epoxy from running straight through. However, I think it works better if the holes aren’t right next to the hull-deck joint bolts with a healthy dose of sealant smeared around the area. We didn’t want to remove too much of the existing sealant, so we did the best we could on Saturday. Jeff kept pressing on the duct tape, and I kept refilling the holes. It seemed like a losing battle, and when we returned on Sunday we discovered we were right. We had several holes for the bow pulpit and the “gate” stanchions that were only partially filled. Oh well. At least there was a bit of a plug that we could work with.

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A big project finally crossed off the list – and on to the next one.

The weekend of September 12th was fairly low-key. Jeff had pointed out that we needed to build in some occasional down time where we simply stayed home. It’s easy for me to get hyper-focused and go-go-go, so I knew that he was right. As a result, we decided that we would go to the boat on Saturday only.

Saturday the 12th found us at Shenny bright and early to help remove the sailing school boats for the season. Many hands made light work, so next it was off to Defender and Home Depot for our weekly visits. Once we were back, Jeff sanded the four fiberglass patches and filled and faired them. All that was left to do was to put a few layers of epoxy resin on each patch and this big project would be finished! We needed to wait for the filler to cure before adding the resin, so it wasn’t going to be officially finished until the following weekend, but it still felt good.

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“Fun” with Fiberglass

Labor Day weekend gave us spectacular weather – 3 days of sunny skies and moderate temperatures – perfect for fiberglassing over the four unused thruhulls that we we were left with after removing the head.

The previous weekend had been semi-relaxed. Jeff had to work Saturday morning so we decided to stay home that day, wash the jib, and kick back for the rest of the afternoon. We were able to go over every inch of the jib as we washed it, and we noted a few areas of loose stitching that would need repairing before next season. This wasn’t an unexpected surprise given that sails get a fair amount of wear and tear. I’ve been lusting after a Sailrite sewing machine for awhile, but they aren’t cheap so I was planning on waiting until next year before pulling the trigger. After Jeff pointed out the money we would spend to send our sails to a loft for repair, he was finally able to convince me to get one this year. Yay! Once the first good sale comes along I’ll be ordering that bad baby up and repairing the jib will be project number one.

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Well that’s much better.

We headed down to the boat with great anticipation last weekend, hoping that the smell would be, if not completely gone, then very much improved. As we climbed the ladder to the cockpit, I was disappointed that I couldn’t tell a difference. But when we opened her up and went inside, it was actually A LOT better! Hmmm. What was up with the cockpit? I walked outside again and took a look around. Wait a minute. The blue dodger? I stuck my nose on it and sniffed. Yep! That was it. It must have been stored inside the boat during the offseason. I unzipped and unsnapped everything, pulled it off, and tossed it over the side. Success! As for the dodger, looks like we have yet another thing to wash before it comes back on board. Buoyed by our success, we got down to work.

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It got worse. But then it got better.

The big weekend had finally arrived. Pegu Club was getting hauled out and we could get to work on her.

We spent the previous weekend removing her sails, boom, lines, etc. in preparation for the haul out, but we also spent a lovely afternoon just hanging out in the cockpit on the water and getting comfortable on her. The weekend of August 15 and 16th was promising to be sunny and dry, and we were raring to go.

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